Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Finally Recovered

Today was my first morning back in the pool since our hike. OK, so it didn't actually take my legs over a week to recover, but I did wind up taking most of last week off because my quads were so sore. I'm sure that swimming probably would have helped loosen me up a bit, but I just couldn't pull together the motivation to get to the pool.

However, I did do another open water swim on Saturday when we went to the beach with some friends. At one point I was chugging along, but paused to get my bearings and saw one of the lifeguards waving me in closer. I admit, I ignored him and just kept swimming. First of all, I was still far away from the buoys corralling the beachgoers from the open sea. Second, if I came in closer I would spend my entire swim dodging people. I noticed today in the pool that after swimming in the ocean and fighting the (minuscule) waves and the current, swimming in the pool feels easy.

This morning my coach told me to stop kicking so hard. Ooookay. I have never heard that one before. I have a pretty strong kick, I know. It helps me go fast (and usually means I beat everyone when we use kickboards). But she said that I have too much propulsion in the back and I'm crowding the front. Really? Is that a thing?

Seems to me that if I'm able to keep up the power in my legs over the long run and don't wear myself out, that would be a good thing. I suppose I should listen to my coach, but for the rest of the practice I felt really hampered by not being able to kick like I wanted to, especially when we did the fast sets. Any other swimmers who have been told their legs are too powerful for their own good?